Russia and China on Saturday defended their decision to veto proposed UN sanctions against Zimbabwe.

The Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement said it was "impermissible" that the US and UK's criticism called into doubt Russia's worthiness as a Group of Eight (G8) partner, because the G8 powers agreed not to mention UN sanctions in the joint statement on Zimbabwe, albeit at Russia's behest.

"The American and British UN representatives in the best-case scenario are totally uninformed about the discussion of the G8 leaders in Tokyo, and in the worst case they are deliberately distorting the facts," the statement said.